Make Way for the Spiders

-_-_-_-Rayne's POV-_-_-_-

I paced on the rooftop, now completely covered in my suit. Peter was sitting on some old boxes a few feet away, his head in his hands, also in his suit. He hadn't said anything since we first snuck out here, and it was getting frustrating.

"Gwen Stacy," I said, with a slight growl in my voice. "Dr. Stacy. Kim. Kim Stacy, now Kim Siebert. That's it, I'm changing my name."

Peter sighed, now looking up at me.

"I'll get married," I decided, and although I wasn't serious, Peter still fell off his perch. "I'll marry Harry Styles. How does that sound? Rayne Styles. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Rayne, just calm down," Peter said, standing up, and putting his hands on my shoulders. "We'll figure out what she wants, take her down, have her arrested, or something. Everything will-"

Something ringing cut him off, and he pulled his mask off and stared at his phone curiously.

"Aren't you going to answer that?" I asked, trying to peek and see who it was, but he ignored the call before I could look.

"It's nothing," he insisted, but it started to ring again.

"Is it your aunt?" I asked, now sitting on the same box he had earlier.

"No, it's no one important," he repeated, and started to ignore the call again, but I flung a web out, catching the phone, and bringing it back to my ear.

"Hello?" I sang, after pulling my own mask off.

"Who is this?" a female's voice asked, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Peter fidgeting.

"Rayne Siebert," I answered, tilting my head. "Who is this?"

"Rayne?" the girl repeated. "It's Gwen."

I froze, staring straight ahead of me. "G-Gwen?"

"Yes, and I'm so sorry if I'm interrupting something," she apologized, "but this is an emergency. I need to talk to Peter."

I wanted to say no. I really, really wanted to, but the urgency in her voice... it scared me. "He's right here," I told her, before tossing the phone over to Peter, who was giving me wary glances.

"Yes?" he answered, and I closed my eyes, trying to focus all of my hearing on the phone.

"Peter? Peter, this is important," I heard Gwen say. "Like, Spiderman important."

My eyes shot open. "She knows?" I whispered, and Peter looked at me with wide eyes.

How did you hear that? he mouthed, and I shrugged.

"Gwen, what's wrong?" he asked into the phone, and I listened again.

"My aunt," Gwen sighed. "She's in town for a while, and the other day... Look, it'd be easier to explain this in person. Can we meet up somewhere? After you and Rayne are finished with your... date."

Now! I mouthed, jumping up and down. Tell her now!
Peter nodded. "Just come on up to the roof, alright?"

"Is Rayne there?" I heard, and I shook my head rapidly, slipping on my mask.

"Er, no, I just dropped her off," Peter lied, raising his eyebrows at me.

Gwen must have responded, because Peter was saying goodbye, and turned to me. "Are you just going to stand there while she's talking, or what do you have planned?"

I shrugged. "I just want to make sure that Kim doesn't have her bugged or anything. Kim's deceitful, and probably has Gwen brainwashed or something."

He chuckled, and sat down next to me. "Do you think she knows about Kim? Who or what she is?"

"Believe me, I do," a voice said behind us, and we turned to see Gwen standing there, in a pair of sweats and an old New York Mets t-shirt. "What I don't know," she continued, "is how you know, and who this is." She pointed at me, and I smirked, although she couldn't see.

"Gwen, this is R-" I hit his head, and he quickly corrected himself. "Spidergirl." At Gwen's confused face, he shook his head. "Long story. And Kim has been after Rayne for a while, and we've been trying to figure out why."

"Does Rayne know about it?" she asked, and she looked genuinely worried.

"To some extent, yeah," Peter confessed, glancing at me.

"So if you know about it, you're protecting her, right?" Gwen asked, and I tilted my head.

I always thought she hated me, but now she was acting like she was scared for me.

"I don't think I really need it," I said, smiling softly as I pulled my mask off.

Her jaw dropped, and I couldn't help the giggle that escaped me. "Surprise!" I exclaimed, doing the spirit fingers.

Gwen's eyes flitted between me and Peter, and I bit my lip.

"How about some warning next time, huh?" Peter whispered, and I slightly glared while shoving his shoulder.

"You're... but..." Gwen trailed off, and leaned against the edge of the building. "How?"

"Your aunt, my evil-stepmother," I sighed, before wincing. "No offense."

Gwen smiled. "No, I agree, she's evil. But how is she the one to blame?"

"Dr. Stacy, one of the lead scientists in Nebraska," I explained, as I hopped down from my perch. "I stupidly signed up to be her assistant, or intern, whatever. Did you know she's very good at hiding her identity?"

Gwen chuckled, nodding.

"Right, well... She had 'connections', as she called them, and next thing I know, I'm being used as a lab rat, and having spiders bite me, and..." I started, while I shot a web at a random wooden crate, making the old rotted wood burst, "...voila."

"I never did like her," Gwen sighed, rubbing her eyes. "And her presents sucked."

I couldn't help but burst out laughing at her statement, and she gave me a small grin as well. Peter looked between us with an odd look on his face. "You two are weird," he sighed.

"Girls are like that," Gwen said, and sighed. "So, we're cousins, huh? That's weird."

"You know, I've always wanted a cousin my age," I thought aloud. "They're usually ten years younger, or ten years older."

"Okay," Peter interrupted whatever Gwen was about to say, and stepped between us. "You two can have your little family reunion later, but right now, we need to figure out why Kim, or Tempest, wants Rayne."

"I could've told you that," Gwen shrugged. "I 'borrowed' her laptop earlier while she was out. You'd think that a villain like her would learn to clean up her tracks."

"What did you find?" Peter asked, leaning forward.

"Apparently, Rayne, you weren't the only one to be experimented on," she started, and I bit my lip. "But, you were the only one who didn't have a... reaction to it. All the other experiments, something bad happened to the people. You were the first to not... you know." She shifted her gaze downwards, and my eyes were wide.

Kim had been willing to kill me? She always acted like she tried so hard to get my mom and me to like her, but she was willing to have me dead, just to try some spider bite?

"The spiders that bit you," she pointed at me, "were sent back here, to Dr. Conners, because they thought they weren't prepared. But, they were obviously wrong."

"I'm a good liar," I teased, smirking.

"It seems that way," she agreed, also smiling. "Anyway, those spiders then went through more tests and such, which is probably the same batch that bit you." She then pointed to Peter, who had a thoughtful look on his face.

"But what was their overall goal?" he asked. "Create a new race of humans, we got that. There had to be something else. What are we missing?"

"Dr. Conners wanted to grow his arm back," Gwen pointed out, and I looked at them blankly.

"What?" I asked, my eyebrows raising.

They ignored me.

"I read on her files, that she was injected with some formula. Not the lizards, and not the spiders," Gwen explained. "It was something different, but it didn't have a name. It just said Plan C. And then, it was all personal stuff, kind of like a video diary. She slowly learned to control the weather, and has been logging in everyday for the past month. I don't know what they all say though. I didn't watch them all."

"But she said something about opening doors, and saving millions," I remembered, running my fingers through my hair. "She said I would be used to the open the doors."

"Dr. Conners thought he was recreating the human race," Peter told me. "Maybe she thinks that she's saving the world or something."

"I can try and send the videos to you," Gwen said, crossing her arms. "We can all get together and do a search for stuff."

"That would be hard to get together while doing a background check on a villainess," Peter pointed out.

"We could skip school," I joked, giggling softly to myself. When I didn't get a reply, I looked up to see Peter and Gwen share a look, before turning me. "I was kidding," I insisted. "I've never skipped school in my life! What if we get caught? I'll be in huge trouble!"

"I don't see another option," Gwen stated, shrugging. "Where would we meet? My mom works from home."

"My aunt is home all day," Peter said, and they both turned to stare at me.

"No!" I exclaimed. "I'd be going against the rules! Mom would never trust me again!"

"She won't find out," Peter assured me, rolling his eyes.

"Sometimes she comes home for lunch," I lied. "What if she does that tomorrow?"

"Rayne, I've had your mothers cooking," Peter sighed. "Why on earth would she come home to fix lunch?"

"So, it's settled then," Gwen grinned, clapping her hands. "On Monday, instead of going to school, we give poor Rayne a panic attack, and meet up around... eight?"

"Sounds good," Peter smiled, elbowing me.

"Fine," I grumbled, crossing my arms, and turning away. "But you guys set me up to it. I wanted to go to school, but you two evil people forced me to stay home."

"I'm willing to live with that," Peter teased, and I grumbled more random words.

"Aunt Kim and Will have business meetings to go to all week this week, so it should be easy to get everything we need," Gwen said, and started to walk towards the door. "Maybe I'll pop by tomorrow. Is that okay, Rayne?"

I smiled, and nodded. "Stop by for lunch," I offered. "Just make sure Kim doesn't follow you."

"Trust, me you don't have to worry about that," she laughed, and left.

"Am I the only one confused?" Peter asked me.

I shook my head. "I think I just became a really good friend of the cousin I never knew I had."